The elusive original cut of Quentin Tarantino’s fourth and fifth films, known together as Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, had hitherto existed only on one print, personally owned by Tarantino. It screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 and a handful of times since. Now, after decades of anticipation, it has hit cinemas across the world, with select venues in glorious 70 mm film, including AFI Silver Theater and Cultural Center in Maryland.

From the outset, Kill Bill paid homage to ’70s and ’80s genre cinema, including epics from Hong Kong, yakuza and martial arts films starring Meiko Kaji and Sonny Chiba, and spaghetti Westerns, built around an original character that Tarantino co-developed with star Uma Thurman. Television company Miramax decided that Kill Bill should be split into two “volumes” released separately, reckoning that audiences did not have the attention span for a four-hour epic. While the split meant Tarantino did not have to cut any story, it weakened the film’s act structure and resulted in something a bit disjointed. The first volume felt like a mélange of Japanese swords and ’70s revenge thriller films, whereas the second felt like an introspective drama with a Hong Kong action flashback. Both Kill Bill volumes were smash hits, but the unified film is greater than the sum of its parts.

It is curious to think that a film deemed too long for the attention spans of 2003 would see a successful release 18 years into the smartphone era, but........

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